MINI REVIEW article
Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Urban Greening
This article is part of the Research TopicSpatial Aspects of Urban Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Volume IIView all 4 articles
Inconsistent light measurement protocols in animal studies hinder wildlife-adapted LED illumination applications for natural habitats
Provisionally accepted
- 1KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 3Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Uppsala, Sweden
- 4Politechnika Gdanska, Gdańsk, Poland
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Urbanisation is leading to an increase in outdoor lighting technologies in cities, which can disrupt wildlife habitats in urban greenery and alter their natural biological, physiological, and behavioural rhythms. Despite the flexibility of LED lighting technology, it is not being used effectively in practice to minimise ecological disturbances while providing sufficient illumination for people. A PRISMA review of 31 papers on lighting using contemporary LED sources and wildlife species revealed that lighting parameters were inadequately described to (1) characterise the relationship between assessed ecological impacts and light properties and (2) adjust properties of contemporary lighting technologies to reduce such impacts on animals. The authors suggest strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations for informed sustainable development by establishing common procedures and methods to ensure the transferability of research outcomes to practical applications.
Keywords: Urban lighting design, Outdoor illumination, Electric lighting, artificial light at night (ALAN), light-emitting diodes (LEDs), light pollution, Ecological impact, interdisciplinary research
Received: 23 Sep 2025; Accepted: 02 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dincel, López-Alfaro, Hedblom, Zielinska-Dabkowska and Besenecker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Seren Dincel
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